It is not uncommon for a plurality of tennis balls to be present on a tennis court at one time during a typical practice session of tennis. Once a session is complete or all the balls are used they must be picked-up in order to continue play. This is done not only for the safety of the players, but also to also keep the tennis court free of tennis balls. In the case of tennis practice, time studies have determined that far more time is typically spent in retrieving tennis balls from a court than the time actually spent in hitting the tennis balls during practice. In order to retrieve the tennis balls from the court, the player typically has to pick up each individual tennis ball by hand. This usually means that the player must squat or bend down each time a ball is picked up. This is very stressful and potentially damaging to back and leg muscles.
In addition to squatting or bending down a great number of times to individually pick up many tennis balls, the player has to walk to a specific location where the balls are being stored, e.g., a tennis ball bin. Balls are stored in the bin for future retrieval of balls during practice or a set of tennis. This takes many trips across the court since the player can only hold a limited amount of tennis balls at one time. This process is very frustrating and time consuming to the player.
Tennis ball retrieval systems, however, have been devised to assist the player in retrieving tennis balls that are on a court. Typically the tennis ball retrieval systems are complex systems that assist the tennis player in retrieving tennis balls during play. This permits the user to play with a limited number of tennis balls without the worry of having to manually retrieve the balls. These systems are difficult to install and in most instances are a permanent feature to the tennis court.
These systems usually consist of troughs that run the length of the tennis net and side courts. In addition to the troughs are conveyors and other complicated retrieval mechanisms such as ball stackers and holding systems. Only the most exclusive clubs have tennis courts equipped with such ball retrieval systems due to the expensive nature of these systems and their installation.
Many manual tennis ball retrieval and storage devices have also been invented. Most of these retrieval devices are tubes with caps and on their ends to pick up, hold and dispense tennis balls. However, when such devices are laid on the ground they can roll. In addition, the weight of balls inside the device cause the bottom most ball to protrude out of the bottom opening through which balls enter the device.
To overcome the shortcoming of manual prior art tennis ball retrieval, storage and dispensing devices described in the previous paragraph an improved manual tennis ball retrieval and storage device is needed.